Exporting Virtue?

China’s International Human Rights Activism in the Age of Xi Jinping

By Pitman B. Potter
Categories: Law & Legal Studies, International Relations, Asian Studies, International Law
Series: Asia Pacific Legal Culture and Globalization
Publisher: UBC Press
Hardcover : 9780774865555, 268 pages, February 2021
Paperback : 9780774865562, 268 pages, October 2021
Ebook (PDF) : 9780774865579, 268 pages, February 2021
Ebook (EPUB) : 9780774865586, 268 pages, February 2021

Table of contents

Introduction

1 Human Rights in China Past and Present: From Confucian Governance to Regime-led Development

2 China’s Challenge to International Human Rights Standards: From Qualified Acceptance to Active Revision

3 Case Study: Controlling Political Expression

4 China’s International Economic Relations: Coordination with Human Rights Orthodoxy

5 Case Studies: Coordinating Human Rights and Trade Policy in Labour Relations and Environmental Protection

Conclusion

Notes; Authorities Cited; Index

Description

China’s rise to prosperity on the international stage has been accompanied by increased tensions with international standards of law and governance. Exporting Virtue? examines China’s internationalizing of PRC human rights policy and practice as an example of its international assertiveness, and considers the implications. China’s international human rights activism is couched in terms of virtue but manifested as authoritarianism, inviting scholars and policy makers around the world to engage critically with the issue. Exporting Virtue? investigates the challenges that China’s human rights orthodoxy poses to international norms and institutions, offering normative and institutional analysis and providing suggestions for policy response.

Reviews

Exporting Virtue is a meticulously researched and forcefully argued indictment of faux human rights activism that "seems mainly to be an exercise in justifying authoritarianism, virtue claims notwithstanding."

- Scott Costen

This book is a sound corrective to the often-heard but untenable claims by communist dictators in general that economic, social and cultural rights have precedence over civil and political ones.

- Alex Dessein, King's College London